FBI's Pants on Fire!

[Bob Prudhomme]

I'm going to have to search for the article that spoke about the rifles being sold off by the Italian government. From what I recall, it was only one company involved in the sale, and they sold the rifles to the importers. I distinctly recall the terms of the agreement this company made required all identifying marks, including serial nos., to be removed prior to the rifles leaving Italy. Obviously, this never occurred.

Give me a while, and I will produce the article. I wish I could recall the name of the gunsmith in Italy hired to re-condition the rifles into working order. Riga? Riba? Something like that.

Riva.





You see Bob... Feldsott describes the packing of surplus rifles in Italy assisted by the Italian military. Serial numbers are checked as they are packed.(this is all thanks to John Armstrong's work btw - these images are contained in the CD which accompanies the book) Many come from the Archives and are the only copies of the documents...

Here is a composite of all the info. I fail to see why they would remove the one unique identifier for each rifle - if this was done there'd be no way to follow any rifle unless it was restamped with a new unique # and start all over.

I too have heard this Bob - It makes little sense unless the rifles were destined for places where tracing the serial #'s was not a good idea.

Here is the article about the Italian government's sale of 500,000 Carcanos. They were reconditioned by Luciano Riva, a 5th generation Italian gunsmith and executive with the Brescia-based Breda arms company.

According to the article, Riva was to remove all identifying marks on the rifles, including serial numbers, and to stamp each rifle with Made in Italy. It seems that, by the time C2766 was shipped, Riva had stopped removing markings, and this, plus other factors, led to friction with the importers.